REFUTING MATT WALSH ON SPANKING
INTRODUCTION
I just finished reading Matt Walsh's new blog from yesterday (09/18/2014) entitled "Spanking is a disciplinary measure, not child abuse. Get a grip, people." I am almost unable to retain my composure in responding to this, not because I am angry, but because his arguments are the most laughable serious arguments that I've ever read. Matt completely butchered philosophical arguments and basic logic. I say philosophical arguments because any arguments pertaining to morality automatically fall under the category of philosophy. I will not only refute Matt's, but I will fix his arguments. My position personally is that spanking is wrong, but any good philosopher/debater can argue from both sides effectively. For the purposes of this blog, I will only be refuting the general points rather than traveling deep into the intricacies of the points because his points are so ridiculous and paper thin that they can be refuted at the basic level, let alone on a deeper, more complex level.POINT 1
Matt's first point was that there is a distinction between "spanking" a child and "whipping" a child. He explained that "spanking" is merely an exercise of minimal force towards a child in a spirit of correction and "whipping" as a brutal act of anger and aggression on a child. I can't see how he draws the line here because hitting a child is hitting a child; your intention of hitting a child is to hurt them so they know not to do it again. Matt seems to be trying to use extremes to justify his position, which is essentially committing logical suicide. Using his frame of logic, you could argue that touching a (wo)man inappropriately isn't sexual harassment because you haven't ripped their clothes off. You could say that touching/rubbing on a (wo)man is flirting and ripping a (wo)man's clothes off is sexual harassment, when they are both just different degrees of sexual harassment. "Spanking" and "whipping" are merely two different degrees of abuse. The definition of abuse is "to use so as to injure or damage". Whether you "spank" or "whip" a child, you are using force on them in an attempt to injure them. The definition of injure is "to harm or damage". If you are not seeking to harm your child by spanking them, then what is the purpose of spanking the child?As promised, I will also give a logically sufficient argument for spanking. It could be argued that, though many children's psychologists disagree with spanking, that it is a necessary "evil" to facilitate learning. Spanking recreates the now virtually extinct realms of learning what not to do through traumatic events that were commonly experienced before civilization was fully established and modern cities were invented. This type of learning is generally referred to as negative reinforcement. It was experienced by children when they did things that were dangerous; for example, a child would learn not to leave the group because other children were killed or said child was nearly killed by doing so. There are many other useful examples; however, I will keep this succinct. Modern examples of this are exponentially less drastic and therefore are arguably insufficient; these would be when your child learns not to touch a hot stove due to the pain or not to squeeze the cat because (s)he will get bit. Spanking in this context can be seen as reinforcement of the correct behavior through negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement may be frowned upon by most modern minds, but it was one of the main factors that taught children what not to do before we had the conveniences that we know today.
The prior argument is easily refuted when you see psychological studies on what happens to a child when negative reinforcement is used and when you consider that as we have moved out of the mentioned primitive stages, we have grown exponentially as a society. The last point about society could be argued that it is unknowable what specific changes caused society to grow so much, but that it was definitely more than just protection from life and death situations.
*****NOTE***** Near the end of this point, he uses a simile to explain that if spanking and brutalizing a child are both physical abuse, then raising your voice at your child with respectful language and raising your voice at your child with profane language are both verbal abuse. This argument is utterly ridiculous when you couple in the fact that using profane language to tear down your child is what makes it abusive, not raising your voice. If you are tearing down your child, then you are verbally abusing her/him whether you are speaking loudly or quietly just as hitting your child with great or small force is abusing your child.
POINT 2
Matt's second point was asking what's wrong with physically disciplining a child while asserting that spanking a child isn't exerting violence on a child and claiming that claiming that it is violence is only restates the first argument against spanking. The issue with this argument is that it is essentially trying to refute the first while claiming that it is separate. The main purpose of this portion of his argument is attempting to prove that physical discipline is not violence and is completely separate. He goes so far as to say that claiming that spanking is violence is "intentionally misleading. Even deceitful." He backs this stance up with a definition, which I will use because his own definition betrays his stance of spanking not being violent. His definition was from Webster and it stated that violence is "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse". So he is claiming that spanking is not exerting physical force to injure or abuse. This premise seems wrong from the start, but just to be sure, let's see the definitions of injure and abuse so that we know what violent force is. Abuse, as seen above is defined as "to use so as to injure or damage" and injure is defined as "to harm or damage". So violence is defined specifically according to Webster's entries as "exertion of physical force so as to harm or damage". So please tell me, if you are not spanking your child to inflict harm on them, then what is the point of it?
This point is much too close to my original refutation to add the additional two paragraphs, so just refer to the above paragraphs of "POINT 1" to see the issues hashed out.
POINT 3
The author merely reiterates the prior two points with the same theme that he has had all along about spanking being different than beating. He seems to believe that selective and controlled abuse by another name is OK as long as you are not beating your child, which is a fallacy; spanking fits completely into the definition of both abuse and violence. I am reminded of Juliet's lovely dialogue with Romeo: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet", only what I would say to Matt is, "Abuse by any other name would hurt just as bad". He goes on to equate all forms of discipline to injustice, but actually fails (AGAIN) without realizing it.
"If spanking is violence then sending him to his room is imprisonment, removing privileges is blackmail, and telling him to do chores is slave labor." Matt betrays himself yet again by over-exaggerating to make his point. Spanking is violence and I have proved that already. Sending a child to her/his room is not imprisonment, juvenile detention is prison for children. Let's pretend for a moment that sending a child to their room is an equivalent to imprisonment: imprisonment is legal by an authoritative figure, but violence/abuse is not, it is called assault. Removing privileges is not blackmail and that claim is absolutely laughable. Privileges, by definition, are able to be revoked if the conditions are not met. Blackmail is threatening to turn secret information in to an authority figure if conditions are not met. Revoking privileges is the right of the authority figure and the person blackmailing is never the authority figure. Requiring chores is a broad subject and doesn't fit into slave labor in most cases and when it does, it is immoral. Some children who are required to do chores are paid to do so and therefore are not slaves. The children who are not paid are provided with everything they need to survive and more while required to help keep the house clean, which is only fair. I personally grew up in a home that didn't require chores, but I'm still responsible enough to keep what belongs to me clean and in order. The main issue with this argument is that any time that sending a child to their room resembles imprisonment (like Harry Potter, Cinderella, etc.), removing privileges resembles blackmail (I'm not sure how as they are completely different), or chores resemble slave labor, it is child abuse; the odd behavior out in this list is spanking and physical abuse, because spanking by definition is physical abuse.
Matt still hasn't changed his argument of spanking being mere love in the form of punishment and beating being abuse, when in fact, spanking is abuse. Please see the rebuttal "POINT 1" for more details.
POINT 4
The fourth "point" from Matt isn't even really a point, he merely states that if your children respond to abuse, then abuse them and if your children respond to other means of discipline, then use other means of discipline and then continues to debate this in the fifth point.
POINT 5
Matt's fifth point should have been combined with his fourth point because it is just an elaboration of his fourth. His fifth point was that people whose children don't respond well to abuse shouldn't tell other parents whose children do respond to abuse not to abuse them. This entire premise is utterly ridiculous, but he didn't actually say abuse in this point or the fourth point, he said spanking. I am replacing the word "spank" with "abuse" because as I have proved above, he is just euphemizing the abuse by creating a false separation of spanking and beating.
Matt then goes on to describe that claiming that hitting your child for hitting others is hypocrisy is wrong and backs it up by giving a bunch of ridiculous alternatives that he falsely believes mirrors the claim. He lists your child telling others to do chores, sending others to their rooms, ordering time-outs, taking toys away, telling people what to do, and telling people no. This point is also laced with significantly more smug comments with no significant or relevant bearing on his audience based on the topic of the post. He seems to believe that refusal to spank a child is synonymous with not giving your child instructions or disciplining her/him at all.
What are the issues with what he has said? Hitting a child for hitting someone else is clearly hypocrisy and makes absolutely no sense in a logical thought process. If this isn't hypocrisy, then what is? We would agree that it is hypocrisy to strangle someone for strangling someone else or to cuss at someone for cussing at someone else, so why is it not hypocrisy to hit someone for hitting someone else. Forcing someone to do chores is not punishment for telling someone to do chores is not practiced by anyone and if it is, then I would question their sanity. Chores are a regular part of life, not punishment for anything. If you hit a child the way you assign chores, then you deserve to be in prison because that would mean abusing your child multiple times a day, not just the "spanking" here and there when "needed" as Matt has stated. Sending a child to their room for being disobedient, as mentioned above, is legal for an authority figure to do as punishment for disobedience (committing a crime), whereas violent punishment is not. No one is questioning whether or not an authority figure can punish and reprimand a person that they are in authority over, but violence is never OK. Would you submit to your boss spanking you? Sounds like assault or sexual harassment depending on the context. Ordering time-outs? See the rebuttal of the sending a child to their room argument. Would you tell the police or a judge to take a time-out (jail/prison) or to go to their room (house arrest) because they can do it to you? No. Taking toys away is your right as a parent and a child's toys are a privilege that can be revoked. The state can take away your driver's license or any other license that you acquire as a privilege, but they cannot physically abuse you. The rest of these points are all pretty much the same pertaining to authority figures. The issue is not that Matt had a bad comparison of what parents do, it's that his comparison is rooted in the figments of his fantasy world rather than reality. Can a judge abuse you? No. Can a judge require community service or gaining a steady job, order house arrest, order jail/prison time, take privileges away, tell people what to do, or tell people no? Yes. Matt needs to learn what is acceptable in society and to allow that to transfer into his home life.
A better argument would have been to say that we need corporal punishment to be implemented in our society once again without prejudice. Everyone must be abused when they disobey orders or laws so that they can learn how to properly function. You cannot make an argument that children must take something that isn't even acceptable in society unless you say that it should be acceptable in society as well. This would mean a much harder fight because then you, Matt, would be condoning and encouraging the very punishments that killed our savior and many of our early church leaders.
POINT 6
Matt's sixth point is the one that I find the most ridiculous and I can't even comprehend how this argument makes sense to anyone, even Matt. He attempts to prove guilt by association by pointing out that many liberals are against spanking and also states that many liberals are pro-abortion in an attempt to create a false sense of irony. The fact tat he tries to relate these two wholly separate positions through political affiliation, which literally has no bearing in an educated, logical argument. Despite the fact that some people are both pro-abortion and spanking or anti-abortion and spanking, Matt seems to need to relate the pro-abortion and anti-spanking positions with some sort of liberal agenda to validate his argument, when in fact, they are completely separate and independent positions that many people across the political spectrum have. This point is absolutely debunked by the fact that the moral positions are not dependent on political leanings. I would like to point out the irony in the point that he made: if we make the generalization of pro-abortion and anti-spanking go along with anyone who is liberal, then the generalization of anti-abortion and pro-spanking going along with anyone who is conservative must also be made. If there is the irony of it being OK to kill a fetus, but not abuse a child for liberals, then there must be the irony of saving a fetus just to abuse a child is just as valid. Matt's entire argument is a failure because it polarizes positions that aren't polarized and it can just as easily be reversed on him.
I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no reconciliation for this argument; it is butchered and ignorant of common sense beyond repair.
POINT 7
I'm not even sure how Matt thought that bringing up A.P.'s (Adrian Peterson) sexual encounters out of wedlock pertains to this argument. It seems like Matt is trying to do some damage control: let's not focus on the crime that A.P. committed, but on the trivial topic of his sex life. It's much like if a president knocked out his first lady and the media focused on the president's sexual history rather than the issue of him knocking out his wife. I won't deny that the issues that Matt brought up do need to be addressed, but don't try using them to divert attention away from child abuse, bring them alongside it. Also, please leave race out of it; there are "dead-beat dads" in every race.
On a separate topic that Matt brought up, to talk about out-of-wedlock homes you must talk about what is defined as wedlock. If you are talking about our modern convention of marriage, then it is not illegal or immoral to have a child outside of wedlock. If you are speaking of Biblical marriage, then yes, one must be married to morally have children, but Biblical marriage doesn't require the permission of the state, a priest, or an audience; Biblical marriage is between the couple and God, no one else.
CONCLUSION
Matt, you have brought three horrible arguments and mislabeled four others as separate arguments. This was my refutation of your "arguments" and I'm not sure why you felt the need to speak out without proper research or study, but you did. Please think critically, logically, and philosophically about anything you post about morals in the future and save us all a major headache.
*****NOTE***** MATT WALSH IS NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE ANY ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT IS AND IS NOT HERESY AND CANNOT LABEL ANYTHING AS HERESY THAT HAS NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN LABELED HERESY BY A CHRISTIAN COUNCIL.
ALSO ---- PLEASE REALIZE THAT SCIENCE HAS PROVEN THAT SPANKING HAS NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON CHILDREN'S BRAINS AND REDUCES THEIR ABILITY TO MAKE GOOD CHOICES. ALSO REALIZE THAT PROVERBS 23:13-14 USES THE SAME WORD FOR "ROD" AS MANY OTHER PASSAGES IN THE BIBLE THAT TALK ABOUT THE STAFF OR ROD GUIDING THEM LIKE A SHEPHERD, NOT FOR REPRIMANDING OR STRIKING, BUT FOR LEADING.
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